University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Faculty Member, Media Arts and Game Development

Other Affiliations: Indiana University Bloomington, Telecommunications
The University of Texas at Austin, Radio-TV-Film
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Educational Communications and Technology

Lecturer

Media Arts & Game Development

Thesis Title: GameZombie TV

About

Faculty - Media Arts & Game Development
University of Wisconsin at Whitewater

PhD Candidate - Educational Communications & Technology
University of Wisconsin at Madison

Founder & Executive Producer of the four-time Webby Award winning original series, GameZombie TV

GameZombie TV: Using Game Media Production to Construct a Project-Based Learning Environment
The project-based digital media curriculum, GameZombie TV, is more popular than ever. Founded at Indiana University in March of 2007, the project has expanded to incorporate the combined efforts of students at Indiana with those at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. To date, over 400 students have worked on the project for school credit. On the global stage, the students have won an unprecedented 4 Webby Awards in 3 years. This case-study will address how the constructivist learning environment of GameZombie TV has served to stimulate the creativity and imagination of students; build social skills; and learn powerful digital media production and management skills—all while utilizing innovative PBL techniques to carefully balance entertainment and serious goals.

‘Web Video & the Game Industry’ provides students a hands-on opportunity to produce a game video web series, while strengthening multimedia production skills, new media marketing savvy, and expertise in the most current topics in online media and the business of interactive entertainment. The curriculum provides the opportunity to enhance one’s portfolio, industry connectedness, and global web presence. Students learn - in the trenches - how to workshop each other’s projects and ideas in an energetic, creative, and collaborative environment. GZ’s style of production centers on regular feedback, open channels of communication, and a mentorship system in which our Lead Editors, Producers, and various senior team members provide focused constructive criticism and advice. Workflow and organizational structure have grown, over time, increasingly sophisticated and more efficient.

The challenges of the globally competitive 21st Century require a workforce equipped with the aptitude for collaboration, communication, and complex project management. The learner-centered curricular approach of GameZombie TV improves the ability of students to locate and evaluate resources, work collaboratively, and oversee a complicated, ill-structured project. The ultimate goal of GameZombie's PBL model is to educate students to become self-directed lifelong learners capable of thriving in the accelerating pace of the Information Age, with its unprecedented data overload.

Keywords: Project-Based Learning, Self-Directed Learning, Digital Media and Learning, 21st Century Skills

Spencer Striker works for the Media Arts & Game Development Program at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater while simultaneously pursuing a PhD in Educational Communications & Technology, at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His work seeks to synthesize research and practice toward becoming a designer of 21st Century learning environments that integrate new media production, web video, social media optimization, and the new web.

Digital Media and Learning Research Focus:
New Media effects on how we think, work, and live and the development of project-based 21st Century multimedia learning projects that compete and succeed on the web.

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